It could be rationally believed that, with the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (read Obamacare)**, single-payer advocates would pull in their horns on the strength of the coming 2014 implementation of that law that would seem to cover everyone (universal coverage) at some reasonable cost – see Health Insurance Exchanges –MNsure in Minnesota.

To that notion, Health Care for All-Minnesota (in league with Physicians for a National Health Plan Minnesota – PNHP) replies, “The federal reforms are a positive step that will provide coverage to many of the uninsured, but they do little to control the costs for those who already have insurance, and the skyrocketing cost of health care must be addressed. By delivering health care in an efficient, common sense manner, the MHP will make health care affordable to all.

MHP is the Minnesota Health Plan – an alternative to the ACA’s Health Insurance Exchanges and MNsure – is proposed as a system to cover everyone, leaving out no one and doing it all for less money, according to these proponents.

A few months ago, TTT’s Community Connections series brought you a one-hour special broadcast live from the Wilder Foundation and featured advocates and arguments in favor of Minnesota’s legislation to create its own version of a federally mandated health insurance exchange – an option for states to establish (some have, some refuse to, meaning the feds will step in and run one) a system allowing those without employer-supplied insurance or medical assistance to purchase some sort of plan. PNHP appeared in support of that plan, but stressed that the real answer for universal coverage at a minimal or no cost to patients while lowering the “skyrocketing” costs of healthcare, period.

And, so the push by supporters of single-payer – a system of mandated coverage paid for by your tax dollars with services provided by the same private providers (clinics and hospitals and professionals) now providing your care – maintain their belief and their campaign – and we’ll ask why all this is necessary under the circumstances.

And we’ll hear cuttings of a powerful one-man play – “Mercy Killers” – live from our studios with that show’s writer and performer, Michael Milligan, here to perform his entire play at HCA-MN and PNHP-MN’s Annual Summer Celebration, this year from the stage of Chanhassen Dinner Theatre this coming Thursday, June 20th. (A few seats are left for only the performance at this writing, so check here for ticket availability.)

TTT’S ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI bring you a discussion with the proponents of single-payer and an introduction to “Mercy Killers”.

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As the climate heats up once again around the wisdom of allowing the Hennepin County Energy Recovery Center (HERC) – or as it’s colloquially known – the downtown Minneapolis garbage burner – to up its garbage-burning capacity by 20% over its currently permitted limit, the advocates from every corner – the State Legislature, the MPCA, Hennepin County, Covanta Energy (contractor-operator of the garbage burning generator), Minneapolis, and several citizen commissions and advocates are active again in staking out recalcitrant positions for and against both the facility itself – and its application for increased burning. The heat comes from sometimes totally unrelated arguments regarding the same project:

Is Hennepin County’s and Covanta’s Waste to Energy (WTE) facility – the HERC – better at reducing the city’s and county’s wastes by not dumping them in landfills the way we as a society have done for centuries? Probably. The United States remains one of the very few industrial nations which still landfills nearly 70% of its waste while some European nations actually reuse and recycle up to70% of theirs, some of them almost down to zero landfilling.

But the questions don’t stop there. Just what are they burning in those furnaces and what by-products of that burning are adversely affecting human health? And, after the burning, what’s left in the ash and where should the ash go? If any or all of these things are as toxic as the burning facility’s critics say they are (and they must be, since it requires a Pollution Control Agency permit to even run the place). We know that deadly mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrochloric acid, Nitrogen Oxides – or NOx – carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and a couple of other pollutants are emitted in some quantity down there.

Some friends of the HERC insist that the WTE facility has reduced those toxic emissions by massive percentages and that the waste would be dumped in landfills if not burned. It’s opponents absolutely insist this is not so, while also saying that any burning of anything whatsoever is far too detrimental to the public health and adding exponentially to the greenhouse gases (GHG) responsible for climate change.

This is hardly a partisan issue since supporters of both the HERC and its opponents reside in all the parties and across the political spectrum.

Helping to feed the latest controversy was a MinnPost Community Voices columnsubmitted by well-known Minnesota science writer, filmmaker, and novelist, Shawn Lawrence Otto, who bio states that he “lives in a wind-powered, passive solar, superinsulated geothermal home he designed and built with his own hands. He recycles, composts and drives a hybrid car.” In his piece, he plumps for TWE as at least the current answer to landfilling garbage.

As for the process of approvals and appeals submitted to the umpteen agencies in charge:Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission and City Council, TheMN Pollution Control Agency (MPCA-permitting authority). Lara Norkus-Crampton, a nurse who has sat on the Planning Commission continually reminds whoever will listen that

“In the last four years that this Appeal has been dragging out, we have observed the County wanting to talk about anything besides the required findings this proposal couldn't meet to get the Conditional Use Permit to burn 20% more garbage per day at HERC. The issue before us is whether or not a HERC Conditional Use Permit should be allowed to be granted to burn approx 400,000 pounds more garbage per day. The required findings they were judged unable to meet by the Mpls Planning Commission are: 1) Will not endanger or be a detriment to the public health, safety, comfort or general welfare; and 2) Will not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the vicinity, and will not impede the normal or orderly development and improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in the district.

“The County and Covanta appealed our denial but in four years have still have not presented the data to prove that this proposal won't impact the health of people living downwind or negatively impact the property rights of those unlucky enough to be getting regular showers of toxic emissions.”

State Rep. Frank Hornstein and Ms. Norkus-Crampton and other opponents will face off a bit with passionate supporter of the increased capacity, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, as TTT’s ANDYDRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI query some of the key players in this four-year drama of application, appeal, revisions and more appeals and, ultimately to answer the questions we should all be asking: what is the safest alternative to the HERC facility and should it be allowed to burn even more than currently allowed. And what roles do all the elected and appointed officials in each jurisdiction play in all this?

HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST – PLEASE DONATE HERE!

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As the climate heats up once again around the wisdom of allowing the Hennepin County Energy Recovery Center (HERC) – or as it’s colloquially known – the downtown Minneapolis garbage burner – to up its garbage-burning capacity by 20% over its currently permitted limit, the advocates from every corner – the State Legislature, the MPCA, Hennepin County, Covanta Energy (contractor-operator of the garbage burning generator), Minneapolis, and several citizen commissions and advocates are active again in staking out recalcitrant positions for and against both the facility itself – and its application for increased burning. The heat comes from sometimes totally unrelated arguments regarding the same project:

Is Hennepin County’s and Covanta’s Waste to Energy (WTE) facility – the HERC – better at reducing the city’s and county’s wastes by not dumping them in landfills the way we as a society have done for centuries? Probably. The United States remains one of the very few industrial nations which still landfills nearly 70% of its waste while some European nations actually reuse and recycle up to70% of theirs, some of them almost down to zero landfilling.

But the questions don’t stop there. Just what are they burning in those furnaces and what by-products of that burning are adversely affecting human health? And, after the burning, what’s left in the ash and where should the ash go? If any or all of these things are as toxic as the burning facility’s critics say they are (and they must be, since it requires a Pollution Control Agency permit to even run the place). We know that deadly mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrochloric acid, Nitrogen Oxides – or NOx – carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and a couple of other pollutants are emitted in some quantity down there.

Some friends of the HERC insist that the WTE facility has reduced those toxic emissions by massive percentages and that the waste would be dumped in landfills if not burned. It’s opponents absolutely insist this is not so, while also saying that any burning of anything whatsoever is far too detrimental to the public health and adding exponentially to the greenhouse gases (GHG) responsible for climate change.

This is hardly a partisan issue since supporters of both the HERC and its opponents reside in all the parties and across the political spectrum.

Helping to feed the latest controversy was a MinnPost Community Voices columnsubmitted by well-known Minnesota science writer, filmmaker, and novelist, Shawn Lawrence Otto, who bio states that he “lives in a wind-powered, passive solar, superinsulated geothermal home he designed and built with his own hands. He recycles, composts and drives a hybrid car.” In his piece, he plumps for TWE as at least the current answer to landfilling garbage.

As for the process of approvals and appeals submitted to the umpteen agencies in charge:Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission and City Council, TheMN Pollution Control Agency (MPCA-permitting authority). Lara Norkus-Crampton, a nurse who has sat on the Planning Commission continually reminds whoever will listen that

“In the last four years that this Appeal has been dragging out, we have observed the County wanting to talk about anything besides the required findings this proposal couldn't meet to get the Conditional Use Permit to burn 20% more garbage per day at HERC. The issue before us is whether or not a HERC Conditional Use Permit should be allowed to be granted to burn approx 400,000 pounds more garbage per day. The required findings they were judged unable to meet by the Mpls Planning Commission are: 1) Will not endanger or be a detriment to the public health, safety, comfort or general welfare; and 2) Will not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the vicinity, and will not impede the normal or orderly development and improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in the district.

“The County and Covanta appealed our denial but in four years have still have not presented the data to prove that this proposal won't impact the health of people living downwind or negatively impact the property rights of those unlucky enough to be getting regular showers of toxic emissions.”

State Rep. Frank Hornstein and Ms. Norkus-Crampton and other opponents will face off a bit with passionate supporter of the increased capacity, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, as TTT’s ANDYDRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI query some of the key players in this four-year drama of application, appeal, revisions and more appeals and, ultimately to answer the questions we should all be asking: what is the safest alternative to the HERC facility and should it be allowed to burn even more than currently allowed. And what roles do all the elected and appointed officials in each jurisdiction play in all this?

MOST RECENT SHOW

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The guy can drive you nuts. Just when you think he’s about to encase himself in a predictable cloak of political or public safety polarization, out he comes with sometimes shocking contradiction. This is Tony Bouza and his oft-quoted remark:

“I am an unapologetic supporter of the use of police violence, even lethal force, but it has to be guided by the law, the standards of reasonableness and the U.S. Constitution. I have presided over clubbings, shootings, gassings, and other assaults by the police. I see violence as a key weapon in the police arsenal and trained cops in the full range of possibilities available to us.

"My only caveat is that the use of force has to be legally justified, measured, and appropriate, and that the weapons have to be in conformance with the law."

This is part of the Preface of Tony Bouza’s latest book, Expert Witness: Breaking the Policemen’s Blue Code of Silence, a volume of case files in which the former Minneapolis police chief, considered by most to be a maverick cop, remains a conscientious defender of ethics in policing – this, despite the statement above.

Those on the receiving end of police violence – especially serious advocates of reining in all police abuse – might dispute even this reasoning on its use in enforcing the law. And yet:

This is also the guy writing books and running around the country testifying against police abuse, abuse too often forgiven by chiefs, prosecutors, judges and juries, more often than not pitting the word of men (and some women) of color against cops known to their colleagues and other witnesses as “thumpers” or worse – killers – many willing to lie on reports and cover for each other, no matter how straight most of them may be – because the Blue Code of Silence is like the Mafia’s Black Hand: you never, but never fink on a fellow cop.

Multiply Rodney King times a million or more victims of out-of-control street muggings by uniformed police officers, unafraid of rolling cameras and cell phone videos, knowing the chances are somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% that the cops will get off, despite the visual evidence. Pictures don’t matter much when the public is scared to death – either of criminals or cops – and refuse to convict. The rare conviction usually means one’s network has failed him (or her – almost never her).

Tony Bouza’s years as a cop and his rebellious nature as chief lend him a certain cache of credibility as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases calling out his former brothers in blue for their arrogant excesses, similar to a few other ex-police officers, like author and retired Minneapolis supervisor, Mike Quinn. Quinn’s book, Walking with the Devil: The Police Code of Silence, like Bouza’s, depicts cops as dedicated law enforcement officers – until they lose it – and they lose it often, especially those in Minneapolis Police uniforms. But the criticism remains and some very broken heads and dead bodies have resulted in the name of “protecting and serving.”

As MPR reporter Dan Olson suggested in his 2004 interview of Quinn: “If observing the code protects police, protects citizens and puts bad people away, isn't it at worst, harmless and at best, beneficial?” Quinn says no. He says the code changes the police motto "protect and serve" to "convict and incarcerate." It encourages police to take the law into their own hands, because they know there's little chance their wrongdoing will be exposed by other officers.

‘Then we start having problems," Quinn says, "because then we start seeing that it's OK to start kicking in doors without warrants, that it's OK to make that drug arrest without really seeing them drop the drugs.’”

But that may only be the half of it. The very notion of such codes bespeaks a corrupting culture that may give a false sense of security to those who stay away from criminality or even legal dissent, but get in the face of any officer, and you will find the most innocent of democratic values may mean nothing to the uniform in front of you, one accompanied by a very large gun, a baton and a can of pepper spray.

As the climate heats up once again around the wisdom of allowing the Hennepin County Energy Recovery Center (HERC) – or as it’s colloquially known – the downtown Minneapolis garbage burner – to up its garbage-burning capacity by 20% over its currently permitted limit, the advocates from every corner – the State Legislature, the MPCA, Hennepin County, Covanta Energy (contractor-operator of the garbage burning generator), Minneapolis, and several citizen commissions and advocates are active again in staking out recalcitrant positions for and against both the facility itself – and its application for increased burning. The heat comes from sometimes totally unrelated arguments regarding the same project:

Is Hennepin County’s and Covanta’s Waste to Energy (WTE) facility – the HERC – better at reducing the city’s and county’s wastes by not dumping them in landfills the way we as a society have done for centuries? Probably. The United States remains one of the very few industrial nations which still landfills nearly 70% of its waste while some European nations actually reuse and recycle up to70% of theirs, some of them almost down to zero landfilling.

But the questions don’t stop there. Just what are they burning in those furnaces and what by-products of that burning are adversely affecting human health? And, after the burning, what’s left in the ash and where should the ash go? If any or all of these things are as toxic as the burning facility’s critics say they are (and they must be, since it requires a Pollution Control Agency permit to even run the place). We know that deadly mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrochloric acid, Nitrogen Oxides – or NOx – carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and a couple of other pollutants are emitted in some quantity down there.

Some friends of the HERC insist that the WTE facility has reduced those toxic emissions by massive percentages and that the waste would be dumped in landfills if not burned. It’s opponents absolutely insist this is not so, while also saying that any burning of anything whatsoever is far too detrimental to the public health and adding exponentially to the greenhouse gases (GHG) responsible for climate change.

This is hardly a partisan issue since supporters of both the HERC and its opponents reside in all the parties and across the political spectrum.

Helping to feed the latest controversy was a MinnPost Community Voices column submitted by well-known Minnesota science writer, filmmaker, and novelist, Shawn Lawrence Otto, who bio states that he “lives in a wind-powered, passive solar, superinsulated geothermal home he designed and built with his own hands. He recycles, composts and drives a hybrid car.” In his piece, he plumps for TWE as at least the current answer to landfilling garbage.

As for the process of approvals and appeals submitted to the umpteen agencies in charge: Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission and City Council, TheMN Pollution Control Agency (MPCA-permitting authority). Lara Norkus-Crampton, a nurse who has sat on the Planning Commission continually reminds whoever will listen that

“In the last four years that this Appeal has been dragging out, we have observed the County wanting to talk about anything besides the required findings this proposal couldn't meet to get the Conditional Use Permit to burn 20% more garbage per day at HERC. The issue before us is whether or not a HERC Conditional Use Permit should be allowed to be granted to burn approx 400,000 pounds more garbage per day. The required findings they were judged unable to meet by the Mpls Planning Commission are: 1) Will not endanger or be a detriment to the public health, safety, comfort or general welfare; and 2) Will not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the vicinity, and will not impede the normal or orderly development and improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in the district.

“The County and Covanta appealed our denial but in four years have still have not presented the data to prove that this proposal won't impact the health of people living downwind or negatively impact the property rights of those unlucky enough to be getting regular showers of toxic emissions.”

State Rep. Frank Hornstein and Ms. Norkus-Crampton and other opponents face off a bit with passionate supporter of the increased capacity, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, as TTT’s ANDYDRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI query some of the key players in this four-year drama of application, appeal, revisions and more appeals and, ultimately to answer the questions we should all be asking: what is the safest alternative to the HERC facility and should it be allowed to burn even more than currently allowed. And what roles do all the elected and appointed officials in each jurisdiction play in all this?